


origins

by neverloseyourpride



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen, Headcanon, Multi, Other, Seduction to the Dark Side, The Dark Side of the Force, bc who doesn't want knights of ren origin stories, i love these sassy kids in their black capes and helmets omg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 02:58:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6638563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverloseyourpride/pseuds/neverloseyourpride
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are the colour of darkness; of the empty, silent, never-ending void of space. Faceless, they watch through thin slits in their masks, each inhale and exhale muted to silence to remind everyone that they mean death.</p><p>The Knights of Ren begin as a group of fifteen teenagers, standing firm and tall and trying valiantly not to cry when they are asked to kill the first person who dares to try and sneak back home to the Rebellion. Their skin is soft, their hair shines and the whites of their eyes glisten. This youth will not last. </p><p>Pre-Episode VII.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They are the colour of darkness; of the empty, silent, never-ending void of space. Faceless, they watch through thin slits in their masks, each inhale and exhale muted to silence to remind everyone that they mean _**death**_.

The Knights of Ren. Seven of them stand in a crescent moon shape and the Force whispers around them. Black capes sit heavy on their shoulders (but not as heavy as their sins). They have known one another not since the birth of their bodies, but since the birth of their minds. A military unit, a secret organisation, a family of forgotten children. Acting and moving as one, their thoughts are interweaved like the threads of a spider web, communicating without the need for spoken word.

Supreme Leader Snoke looks down upon what he has created and smiles. Six of them had been but children when he had acquired them, their gazes darkened and skills honed. He does not notice the twitching smirks beneath their helmets, or the way their fingers curl and unfurl at their sides. Their skulls hum with musings that are sharp-fanged and bloody.

 

\---

 

 **KNIGHT ONE** (Kylo Ren, Luke Skywalker’s Padawan)

The rain sticks dark locks of hair to his face, cold rivulets streaming down his neck. The mud is slick underfoot but he remains still, watching and waiting. _Thwack_. A training saber smacks him in the side, sending a dull pain shooting through his ribs. Before he can respond in kindness, Luke is already hitting him a second time. _Thwack, thwack._ Ben feels a growing sense of irritation settling in the back of his throat, manifesting into a low growl.

_< <You must steady your mind,>> his mentor reminds him for the fifth, sixth, seventh time that day, <<Do not allow your emotions to get the better of you.>>_

It is easier said than done when your uncle insists on making you train in the midst of a downpour.

An hour later and he finds himself sat upon his bed counting the bruises, purple-blue hues blossoming across pale skin. He closes his eyes and lies back, clothes still damp and limbs aching. Exhausted sleep begins to creep in, drifting off slowly-- “ _Ben_.”

The youth startles and sits upright, his mother stood at the door. “Get dressed, son. We have a dinner tonight with members of the Republic and I need you to be there.”

He sighs and she steps inside his room, reaches out and combs his hair gently into something a little more presentable. “My brother says you have been doing well with your training.”

Ben nods, although it is solemn. Leia responds with a contrastingly warm smile and presses a kiss to his forehead. “Well done.”

He takes little from that praise, despite knowing she is pleased with him. What has he achieved, other than getting one step closer to being a carbon copy of Luke Skywalker? (Not much later on in life, he realises that he’d been idolising the wrong family member all along).

A year later and Ben he looks down to see the blood of his peers dripping from shaking palms. Supreme Leader Snoke appears from behind him, places a hand upon his shoulder, and utters the exact same words. “Well done.”

 

 **KNIGHTS TWO, THREE & FOUR** (Varn Ren, Kess Ren and Aelu Ren, Jedi Younglings)

They sit crossed legged within the temple, always at the back of their class. Before them, sixteen other students chant.  _“Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force.”_ But look closely and you will see that the trio’s lips are moving but they do not speak a word.

Varn is the most outgoing of the three. She argues fiercely with a tongue of poison and grits her teeth when scolded for voicing her opinions so viciously. When she is told that they must travel to the ice planet Ilum for The Gathering, she flat out refuses and is held back a year. Resentment takes root within her small body, unshakeable. 

Kess is young and innocent and looks up at everyone with eyes of burning amber. The Force-sensitive daughter of a mechanic, she picks up a wrench one day and makes it levitate four feet in the air before throwing it at the skull of a passer-by who is subsequently knocked unconscious. A childish giggle escapes her lips, unknowing of the damage she has done (the victim takes six weeks to fully recover from their head trauma).

And Aelu drums his youthful fingers boredly upon smooth surfaces, unstimulated by what they teach him. A beacon of intelligence, his bedroom is stacked high with books and scrolls. History seeps into him, reminding him that all he is taught is only the opinion of some. He collects stories like precious trinkets, stores them in his chest, and decides that knowledge is perhaps the greatest weapon of them all.

But for all their obvious distinctions that make them stand out from their peers, it still strikes Ben Solo Kylo Ren as a surprise when Supreme Leader Snoke announces that the three will be joining them. “They have the Dark Side in them,” he informs, and that is that.

 

 **KNIGHT FIVE** (Jarix Ren, Farmer’s Son)

Fields of gold fill his vision as he runs through the crops, arms outstretched and fingers brushing over the seed heads. His feet are bare and dirty, but he barely feels the ground underfoot. Soil turns to rock as he runs and suddenly it is sharp gravel, piercing at his soles. A sting of pain spikes through his left foot, droplets of red trailing behind him. He pauses, concentrates, feels an energy wash over in a great wave and watches as the cut closes. Around him, plants wither.

It is not long until they come for him. Stormtroopers stand at the door and he’ll be damned if they’re the cleanest things he’s ever seen. The white nearly dazzles his eyes, and if anyone ever asked he would have used that excuse for the tears running streaks down his cheeks. He watches as his father takes the pouch of money off of the First Order cadet, barely blinks as he is frog-marched towards a command ship.

“Da?” he calls out, just once, for his own satisfaction.

“You’ll thank me one day, son,” his father responds, face twisted in regret as he closes the door.

 

 **KNIGHT SIX** (Skor Ren, Street Urchin)

A skinny frame and long legs carry him through crowded streets. Sweat glistens upon his shaved head, the clothes draped over his body tattered and frayed. In the boys’ hand is a golden earring with a precious stone set into its surface. He hears a cacophony of shouts from behind him but keeps on running, never looking back. The grin that spreads across his mouth is full of sharp teeth.

“Where do you come from?” someone asks one day. He cannot remember if the question is posed by a fellow thief or a stranger taking pity on him.

“I don’t know,” he replies simply, the look on his face borne from a child made to grow up far too quickly.

“But you must have parents,” the inquisitive soul says, continuing to probe unnecessarily. 

The boy throws his head back with a single bark of laughter. “How do you know, maybe I was conceived by the sun itself.”

And from then on, he continues to _burn,_  until one day a man with eyes the colour of ice and skin the colour of snow asks if he would like to step aboard his ship. The interior is cool and dark, and he is met by a group of teenagers with sparks in their eyes that look a lot like the one that plays across his own.

 

 **KNIGHT SEVEN** (The Other Ren, Hermit)

They are born deaf and blind, their world based on remaining senses. The feeling of water running over grazed fingers. The heat of a naked flame. The taste of blood in their mouth after biting down too hard upon their lip.

Sometimes, they think that the Force chooses them out of pity. It is a slow process, as a new energy entwines itself with their body. Suddenly, things begin to make sense. Like a puzzle, the pieces are fit together and objects begin to appear through the fog.

(But do not be mistaken, this is not the same as _seeing_.)

And then the sounds follow, a whispering of sorts that fills their mind.

 _< <Help me,>>_ they call out into the abyss.

 _< <As you wish, child,>> _Supreme Leader Snoke answers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Knights of Ren begin as a group of fifteen teenagers, standing firm and tall and trying valiantly not to cry when they are asked to kill the first person who dares to try and sneak back home to the Rebellion. Their skin is soft, their hair shines and the whites of their eyes glisten; this youth will not last. Some of them wonder if they were foolish in thinking that converting to the First Order was a good idea. It is those who doubt themselves who are the first to go.

The Knights of Ren begin as a group of fifteen teenagers, standing firm and tall and trying valiantly not to cry when they are asked to kill the first person who dares to try and sneak back home to the Rebellion. Their skin is soft, their hair shines and the whites of their eyes glisten; this youth will not last. Some of them wonder if they were foolish in thinking that converting to the First Order was a good idea. It is those who doubt themselves who are the first to go.

It is inevitable, the pull towards the Light. It hooks around the mouths of the weak and innocent, pulling at flesh, reeling them in. _Come and bathe_ , it calls, _wash yourself clean and find peace within your mind. Seek forgiveness and you will receive it_. The boy who gives in first is slaughtered the next morning by a girl with wild hair and a dangerous glint in her eyes. She pushes a knife through his throat and watches a stream of crimson bubble up. Kylo Ren, nineteen years old and already in charge of his own apprentices, offers praise in the form of a name, “Congratulations, Varn Ren,” and he signals for another to clean up the mess.

A male who resembles a skeleton drops to the floor instantly, using the Force to summon a scrubbing brush. He works hard, this one, for he has never had the luxury of belonging to something. A stray with a home and bones to chew on, he is soon referred to as Skor Ren.

Total: One dead. Two chosen. Twelve nameless teenagers remain.

They are hollowed out to become shells. This is done by pushing them to the brink of existence, forcing them to stare into the face of death itself. Abandoned upon an ice planet for a month, six of them die from exposure and starvation. When the survivors return, they are starving and feral. One smiles, his lips and teeth stained red, three fingers missing from the frostbite, and Snoke raises an intrigued eyebrow. “Jarix Ren,” he says, turning this monstrous teenager into _someone_.

(Missing digits are replaced by mechanic parts, painted a matte black. He refuses to don any metal that shines).

“I want a name,” declares another boy, teeth still chattering from the cold. The sheer bold audacity of this teenager almost causes Snoke to snap the youth’s neck there and then, but instead a smile twists upon his mouth and he looks to Kylo Ren who simply nods. “Very well,” the Supreme Leader hums, “Aelu Ren.”

Total: Seven dead. Four chosen. Five nameless teenagers remain.

Training is brutal and merciless. But for one teenager, of pale skin and hair of white, their inherent  blindness and deafness does not hold them back. They hit one of their peers so hard in the head that the wooden training saber caves in their skull. Through unseeing eyes, the killer can _feel_ the life seep from their victim’s body, absorbing it greedily into their own. Power is everything. Their fellow Knights remember to give them a wide birth from then on, deciding that a weakness turned into a strength is perhaps the most frightful thing of all. They are eventually known as The Other Ren.

Total: Eight dead. Five chosen. Two nameless teenagers remain.

The final student to be disposed of is slaughtered in one of Kylo Ren’s foul moods. It is no surprise, not to him, not to the other Rens, and not to Snoke. A single teenager remains, the youngest. She is a petite little thing with a bright smile and eyes made of honey. “Look at her,” a couple of the other apprentices whisper. “She won’t last. The Light Side practically resonates out from her.”

She hears them, hears it all. The next day Kylo Ren catches her kissing one of the boys beneath the wings of a TIE fighter. “What are you doing?” he questions later on, not angry but rather inquisitive. The curve of her mouth becomes lopsided. “I am teaching Jarix Ren a lesson.”

And she does; when Jarix catches her kissing someone else a week later, his heart breaks and he realises that Dark Side does not consist solely of violence. They call her Kess Ren.

Total: Nine dead. Six chosen. Zero ~~nameless~~ teenagers remain.


End file.
